CINCINNATI, OH.- There’s one “hall” that couldn’t wait to get Pete Rose in.

The Cincinnati Art Museum is opening Up at Bat: Warhol and Baseball to the public on April 3. It was previously scheduled to be on view April 11 – Aug. 2, with a preview opportunity April 7 – 10.

This exhibition brings Warhol’s three known paintings of baseball players, each of whom rose to the level of pop celebrity during his lifetime, together for the first time on record.

Up at Bat: Warhol and Baseball will feature the 1985 painting of Pete Rose, commissioned by the Cincinnati Art Museum in anticipation of Rose breaking Ty Cobb’s record of 4,191 hits; Baseball, 1962, on loan from the Nelson-Atkins Museum, portraying Roger Maris; and the 1977 portrait of Tom Seaver, who pitched his only no-hitter as a member of the Cincinnati Reds, lent by the Andy Warhol Museum.

Warhol’s painting of “Charlie Hustle” first went on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum on Sept. 10, 1985, a day before Rose’s famous, record-breaking hit. The larger-than-life four-paneled painting was derived from a photograph by Gordon Baer and styled like a classic baseball card.

Warhol’s progressive proofs for the screen print of Pete Rose, commissioned by the Museum, are also a part of this exhibition, along with several other examples of his art and a historic selection of baseball cards from “Dean’s Cards,” an online Cincinnati-based vintage sports card company. This exhibition will also feature an interactive activity to provide hands-on insight into the process of silk screening.

Kristin Spangenberg, Cincinnati Art Museum Curator of Prints, organized the exhibition along with Cameron Kitchin, the Louis and Louise Dieterle Nippert Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum.

“This exhibition helps us see Warhol in a new way. He takes baseball players and makes them into celebrities,” said Kitchin, “Bringing these images from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s together for the first time gives us great insight into Warhol work and subjects.”

Admission to the Cincinnati Art Museum and Up at Bat: Warhol and Baseball is free. The exhibition is located across from the new Rosenthal Education Center (REC), off of the Art Museum’s Great Hall.

This exhibition is sponsored by PNC, Dinsmore, Fund Evaluation Group and the Cincinnati Reds.

The Museum Shop will have exclusive lithographs of Warhol’s Pete Rose, including some framed and signed pieces, and a selection of limited edition postcards. Warhol notecards and books, as well as Cincinnati Reds cufflinks, money clips, and pendants designed with authentic game-used ball covers, bottle openers designed using Cincinnati Reds’ broken bats, and pens designed from Crosley Field’s wooden seats. Other items reflecting the Cincinnati Reds and celebrating baseball nostalgia will also be on sale.